Bejarano just misses triple-double as Colorado State bounces Lamar in men's basketball

Dec. 29, 2013

Loading Photo Galleries ...

Written by

Daniel Bejarano attempts a layup during the first half of CSU's 86-71 win against Lamar on Saturday at Moby Arena. Bejarano was just shy of a triple-double during the game, which would have been the first in team history. / Erin Hull/The Coloradoan

Colorado State University has been playing basketball for 112 years, and not once in program history has a player recorded a triple-double. Bejarano came close in the Rams’ 86-71 victory over Lamar.

He finished the game with 19 points, 18 rebounds and seven assists. By halftime, he had his sixth double-double of the season with 10 and 10 and made seven field goals on the afternoon. Eighteen rebounds is a career-best for Bejarano.

“Some of my teammates were looking up (at the scoreboard) and telling me I was close. It’s fun, but at the same time, I’m just trying to do it all, just like every game,” Bejarano said. “If I get it, I get it. If I don’t, I don’t care. I’m just trying to get the ‘W’ — that’s the most important thing. But, hey, if it’s there, it’s there.”

The last CSU player to have 20 rebounds in a game was Jason Smith, who had 22 against Wyoming in 2007.

Players might have called the game against Lamar (1-11) a total team victory, but it was laced with highlight individual performances. Bejarano wasn’t the only Ram with a big game. What junior forward J.J. Avila did, offensively, dwarfed him in comparison.

Avila scored a career- and game-high 33 points and opened the afternoon making his first 13 shots — a CSU record. Had he not missed three of his final four attempts, he would have tied the Mountain West single-game shooting percentage record former center Colton Iverson set a year ago when he went 12 for 12 at Wyoming.

Most of what he did came from the inside, taking advantage of the feeds Bejarano gave him to set up layups, but Avila did make a 3-pointer.

Sophomore Joe De Ciman’s mother, Mona, didn’t pick a bad day to make the long trip from Saskatchewan, Canada, to Fort Collins either. De Ciman scored 12, including the Rams’ first five of the game.

“We came into these past two games just saying ‘let’s have fun,’ because if we think too much into it, some of the nerves kick in and we don’t really play our game. If we just go out there and have fun and play the way we need to play, we’ll come out with games like this,” said Avila, a transfer from Navy. “I was just running, finding open shots and they were just finding me. They were mostly layups.

(Page 2 of 2)

“I was just making layups — they were finding me — we had 20 assists.”

Saturday’s game closes nonconference play for CSU with a 9-4 record; the Rams will open Mountain West competition Jan. 1 at home against No. 20 San Diego State.

Eustachy said for a CSU team so inexperienced to be a win short of 10 victories at this point of the year should be viewed as a success, but 9-4 is well behind where Bejarano — the reigning Mountain West Sixth Man of the Year—wants to be.

The Rams shouldn’t have let games against UTEP, CU and Denver slip away, he said.

“There’s a few games we should have had. We should have, at least, 11, 12 (wins). Denver, CU — those games we should have won. UTEP, too. Small errors,” Bejarano said. “It is what it is, we just have to get back to the board and do what we do best. I’m not happy with where we are with the 9-4 record — I feel like we’re a better team.

“We’re playing well now, we just have to be consistent with everything. We can’t have one good game and then one bad game.”